Nancy Thompson - Celebration's Baby

Bia raised her head and looked at Maya. She knew Sydney pretty well, since the woman had just married Miles Mercer. Miles was good friends with Bia’s best friend, Aiden Woods. The four of them got together a lot. Bia would’ve called it double dating if she and Aiden had been a couple, but they weren’t. She’d known him since kindergarten and cared too much about him to ruin their relationship by dating him.

“Texas Star Energy, huh?” Bia said.

Maya nodded and quirked a brow that seemed to indicate she knew all about the scandalous demise of the corrupt energy empire. Bia had been the reporter who had broken the story that had started the conglomerate’s unraveling. In fact, her investigative reporting and subsequent awards had helped her clinch the editorship of the paper after Drew Montgomery had decided to give up editing to focus more on the publishing end of the paper. But Texas Star was in the past. It was a can of worms Bia didn’t want to reopen.

“So, you followed your friends to Celebration?”

“Oh, mais non. It’s a little more complicated.” Maya pursed her lips. “At first, I visited them. I attended each of their weddings. In fact, some might say that I even had a hand in bringing each of them together with their soul mates.”

“You introduced them?”

Maya gave a noncommittal one-shoulder shrug. How very French her gestures were. But wait...hadn’t Drew met Caroline at a wedding...? Yes. It had been Caroline’s sister’s wedding. It had been right around the time that everything was coming to a head at Texas Star.

“Technically, non. I didn’t physically introduce them. It’s another complicated story, really.”

“You’re full of complicated stories, aren’t you? If you’d care to expound, I’m here to listen.... That’s what I do.”

Maya studied her as if she was deciding whether she would take Bia up on the offer of a listening ear.

“Well, I do love to talk.” Maya laughed, an infectious sound that made Bia smile.

“Over the years, the girls—Pepper, A.J. and Caroline—have become very dear to me. So, I’ve always looked out for them, and that’s how I had a hand in bringing them together with their soul mates.”

Again, Bia paused and looked up at the woman. Soul mates. There was that word again. Bia filed soul mates in the same category as happily ever after. She wasn’t sure she believed there was such a thing, especially after being left at the altar by the man who should’ve been her soul mate if there was such a thing. Nope, in her book, love was an urban legend. People talked about it. Some even claimed to have experienced it, but real love—the kind that grafted your soul to another person’s for better or worse, the type that could withstand bleached-blonde strippers and the relentless paparazzi—had managed to elude Bia her entire life.

Actually, she’d read somewhere that soul mates weren’t always lovers. Sometimes they were parent and child, sometimes best friends. If that were true, the closest thing to a soul mate she’d ever had was Aiden. Their relationship had survived some pretty treacherous hurdles. It had actually transcended sex. That’s probably why it worked. They hadn’t ruined things by getting physical.

God knew there had been plenty of times Bia had been tempted to give in to his charm. The guy was gorgeous—in a more rugged and down-to-earth way than Hugh’s pretty-boy looks. Women found Aiden irresistible. Since college, he’d had a constant rotation of babes. None of them serious.

Then he’d gotten married. It had lasted two years before they’d called it quits and he’d reverted back to his freewheeling ways.

He wouldn’t talk about what had happened. All he would say was that he hadn’t cheated. “It just didn’t work out.”

His smorgasbord of women had been the main reason Bia had kept Aiden in the friend zone. Well, that and the fact that he’d thrown the bachelor party that ended with the stripper that had broken up her engagement.

Still, despite all Aiden’s faults, Duane and Hugh were long gone, and Aiden was still there.

She put her hand on her stomach. And he would be the first person she told about the baby.

“...and I came to Celebration to see each one of them say I do,” Maya continued. “Each time I visited, I was drawn to this town. As time went on and I visited more, I knew there was a reason I was supposed to be here.”

For a moment, Maya looked wistful. Bia studied her, taking a mental snapshot and hoping she could somehow convey Maya’s mood in the article.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

A warm smile reclaimed Maya’s delicate features. “At home, in St. Michel, I’m known as un marieur.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Bia.

“A matchmaker. I am a third-generation chocolatier by trade, but matchmaking, you might say, is my passion. Some people believe my chocolate is magical.”

Bia stopped writing and looked up. The cinnamon and clove from the last piece of chocolate still lingered on the back of her tongue.

“So, you’re telling me your chocolate is enchanted? What? Do you sprinkle in love potions or something?”

“I would claim nothing of the sort. My chocolate is all natural. Everything is on the label, except for a few proprietary blends.”

“The love potions?”

Maya raked her hands through her hair. “Oh, I should not have said that. Please don’t print that in the profile.”

“Why not? It will probably drive business through the roof. Everyone wants love.”

Well, almost everyone.

As if confirming Bia’s thoughts, Maya did her one-shoulder French shrug.

“What?” Bia asked. “You don’t believe that?”

“I do believe there is someone for everyone. You, for instance. You’ve had your share of setbacks, but there’s someone for you. In fact, you’ve already met him.”

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. If she was going to start asking about the Hugh Newman debacle, Bia would shut that down very quickly. Instead of waiting to get caught in the pickle, she turned the tables.

“Is there someone special in your life?”

Maya paused and drew in a slow, thoughtful breath.

Ha. It’s not so comfortable to be on the receiving end of the dating game rapid-fire, is it?

“Alas, even though my intuition is generally good when it comes to pairing up others, it doesn’t work so well for me personally.”

“So, does this intuitive gift of yours carry over into other areas? Would you go as far as saying you have the gift of second sight?”

Maya laughed. “If I had the second sight, I would’ve already won the lottery. I wouldn’t be agonizing over rollout budgets and marketing campaigns. But that’s strictly off the record, oui?”

“Fair enough,” said Bia. “Back to the business of chocolate. I understand this is the first of two new Maya’s Chocolates that you’re opening stateside. Where will the other location be?”

“I want to get the one here in Celebration off the ground, and then I’ll look into opening another, possibly in New York. However, it’s important that I ensure the fiscal health of the current locations. Especially the one in St. Michel. That’s where my grandmother started the business. It has been a fixture in downtown St. Michel for three generations. All of the recipes have been passed down through the years from mother to daughter.”

“And will you continue the tradition?”

Maya nodded.

“Do you have children?”

For a fraction of a second, Bia thought she saw a shade of sadness color Maya’s eyes.

“Come with me,” Maya said. “I want to show you something.”

The woman led the way to the kitchen, which was hidden behind a double-layered curtain made of silver gossamer backed by heavy white satin. When Maya parted the drapes, allowing Bia her first glimpse behind the scenes, Bia half expected she would glimpse the great and powerful Oz or some other secret to which mere mortals weren’t privy. If they were, wouldn’t every chocoholic have her own in-home chocolatier?